The Utah Supreme Court, affirming a trial court's decision, has ruled that a woman who admitted that she had attempted suicide by rolling her truck down an embankment could not recover under her insurance policy for her personal injuries or for damage to the truck.
The Case
The day after Natalie Heslop overdosed on prescription Ambien and Lexapro, she decided to drive through Ogden Canyon, Utah, to “look at the leaves.” While in the canyon, Ms. Heslop, un-seatbelted, rolled her truck down an embankment. She suffered a hairline fracture to her C7 vertebrae. She received a skin graft and stitches over her right eye. She also was admitted to a hospital behavioral unit for several days.
After the accident, an insurance adjuster for Bear River Mutual Insurance Company called Ms. Heslop to question her about the accident. Ms. Heslop told the adjuster that her crash in the canyon “was pretty much a suicide attempt.” The adjuster asked, “You mean driving off the cliff was a, a suicide attempt?” She responded, “Yeah.” The adjuster asked Ms. Heslop, “Okay, and then what, you just saw an edge there and decided, you know, this is it?” Again she responded, “Yeah.” When the agent asked Ms. Heslop if she had admitted to anybody else that her crash was a suicide attempt, she told him, “my whole family knows …, I told the police and all the doctors knew.”
When the adjuster asked Ms. Heslop why she had attempted suicide, she responded, “I had a bad reaction to a medication”; “I was going to the doctors all the time, everyone was just treating me for anxiety and the medications weren't fixing it”; and “without the medication being right my mind wasn't right and, and I, I don't know, I know it wasn't the right choice.” She also told the insurance adjuster “I think it's due to my medications not being where they should have been.”
Ms. Heslop and her husband attempted to collect from Bear River under both a personal injury protection (“PIP”) claim for Ms. Heslop's personal injuries and a property damage claim for damage to the truck.
Ten days after Ms. Heslop's interview with the insurance adjuster, the Heslops received a letter from Bear River denying their claims. Bear River based its denial on Ms. Heslop's admission that she had intended to drive down the embankment. It explained that because Ms. Heslop had “admitted to us that she was trying to use the vehicle to intentionally take her life by driving off the cliff, we cannot see how this can be considered 'accidental' loss.”
Bear River reaffirmed its decision, and the Heslops sued.
The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Bear River, and the dispute reached the Utah Supreme Court.
The Bear River Policy
The Bear River policy's property damage provision covered only:
accidental loss of or damage to [a] covered car.
The policy also provided that it did not apply:
to any injured person, if the person's conduct contributed to his injury … by intentionally causing injury to himself.The Utah Supreme Court's Decision
The Utah Supreme Court affirmed.
In its decision, the court first found that the trial court had appropriately granted summary judgment to Bear River on the Heslops' PIP claim.
It reasoned that a trial court could consider an insured's mental disease or defect when determining whether injuries were accidental or intentional. It added that the Heslops had not provided evidence sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact on the questions of whether Ms. Heslop could appreciate the consequences of her actions and whether she could control her actions in light of their probable consequences. It found that letters from two doctors did not support the conclusion that Ms. Heslop had failed “to appreciate the consequences of [her] conduct.”
Rather, the court found, the evidence “firmly” established that Ms. Heslop had “understood that the natural and probable consequences of driving off the road would be death or injury.”
Similarly, the court rejected the Heslops' contention that they were entitled to recover for property damage to their truck.
The case is Heslop v. Bear River Mutual Ins. Co., No. 20150697 (Utah Jan. 24, 2017). Attorneys involved include: Ronald E. Dalby, John P. Lowrance, Timothy E. Pettitt, South Jordan, for appellants. Kristin A. Van Orman, Jeremy G. Knight, Salt Lake City, for appellee.
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].